


The Sun Will Rise

by lusilly



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Guilt, Hale Family Feels, Hunters & Hunting, Pack Dynamics, Pack Family, Post Hale Fire, Queer Derek, Sibling Love, Siblings, The Hale Family, The Hale Pack - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 21:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4277775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lusilly/pseuds/lusilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of the six years Derek and Laura Hale lived in New York.</p><p>Needless to say, it does not end happily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sun Will Rise

**Author's Note:**

> Title derived from Warriors by Foxes. For more on my headcanons about Derek and Laura + the Hales, check out [my Teen Wolf blog](http://uglyteenwolves.tumblr.com/).
> 
> This fic is in-canon with my other fic[Lupus Venefica](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1052820/chapters/2107263), and I have selectively revised some canon (meaning, if the details don't work out perfectly with the show's canon, that's because the show's canon is awful).

           They left the Friday after graduation. Laura made her brother walk, even though he didn’t want to. The cheer that rose from the crowd when he made his way across that stage and shook the principal’s hand was raucous and bursting with love and sadness, and it made Derek hurt as he sat back down. From her seat, Laura could his face: the blankness there, the misery, the grief. Five months would typically feel like forever for someone as young as Derek, but pain like the loss of a family – the loss of a pack – does not fade so easily. His wounds as fresh as if it had been yesterday, Laura could smell the sour scent of loneliness on her brother, and of suffering and, as she could always sense but he would not admit to her, the stink of self-loathing. Of guilt.

           Graduation was all she could convince him to attend. The Beacon Hills High School basketball team won second place in regional championships, and at the banquet they named Derek MVP, but he didn’t go. He begged his sister to leave, to let him drop out. There was no point in staying.

           In March, he'd gotten a basketball scholarship to a good college a few hundred miles south, in warmer weather, at a university nestled on the beach. He and Laura didn’t talk about it. They both knew he wasn’t going.

           So he graduated; they sold everything that wouldn’t fit into the car; Laura filed paperwork to release the land the Hale house had once occupied to the county, they visited Peter one last time, locked away in a glorified hospice, and then early Friday morning in the misty gray dawn of approaching daylight, they drove that ugly old truck out of Beacon Hills, prepared to make it forever.

           After a while, Derek slept with his head pressed against the window. Every time he breathed out, hot condensation appeared for just a moment on the glass, then faded away. Laura glanced at him. Without waking him, she reached out and took his hand.

—-

           “You think it’s really ours now?”

           Laura glanced around at her brother. Until this moment, he’d kept his eyes closed and his breathing steady, but he had woken up almost an hour ago. Maybe the act would’ve fooled her before, but she was his Alpha now. Everything was sharper, clearer. Derek was an open book, and it hurt her, that she could give him no privacy, not even if she wanted to.

           Looking back out at the road warily – it was past midday now – Laura replied, “The house in New York? Yeah, of course. It belonged to Mom, so it’s mine now.”

           “She only used it for meetings with other packs,” said Derek. “What if some other Alpha’s taken it?”

           “Then they’d be squatting,” said Laura. “I’m not talking Alpha rights, Derek, I mean she legally owned the property.” After a pause, she added, “Not everything was about werewolf magic with Mom. She was a person too, you know.”

           “I know that,” said Derek.

           There was a short silence, except for the rolling of the car’s wheels on the road. For a while Derek looked out the windows. Rain began to patter down onto the roof and the truck bed behind them. Dully, Derek asked, “Why are we going north?”

           “Mom had some cousins in Canada,” answered Laura. “We’re visiting them first.”

           When Derek looked at her, a shot of icy blue pulsed through his eyes. It disappeared as soon as it came. She knew that he did not like anyone to see that color, those eyes which should have been golden yellow. “Are they-?”

           “They’re family through her great-uncle, or something,” Laura told him. “Just human.”

           Derek watched her for a moment, then finally returned his gaze out the window. “That’s not such a bad thing to be.”

           “No,” she agreed. “It isn’t.”

           “They could be in danger too.”

           “Hunters don’t target humans.”

           “Unless they’re our family.”

           Laura bit her tongue. “We’ll be safe with them. We’re not being followed, and I didn’t tell anybody we were going up to see them.”

            _Not even you_.

           These were words she did not say, words that probably hadn’t even occurred to her. But being kept in the dark was, Derek thought, not a punishment so much as a precaution. He couldn’t be trusted anymore: he shouldn’t be trusted. It hit him like a slap to the face, hurt him like a punch to the lungs. Closing his eyes against the crushing weight of responsibility no longer worked, no longer shut everything out, so he retreated into himself as much as he could, pretending that he didn’t know that this was all his fault.

           Beside him, Laura could taste his rank, stinging guilt. She said nothing.

—-

           At a rest stop diner, Derek had chicken and waffles for lunch and Laura had a hamburger. “I should’ve applied somewhere in New York,” he said.

           She trailed her fries in ketchup, without looking at him. “You didn’t know,” she said. “You couldn’t’ve.”

           “I want to go to college,” he said.

           “I know you do,” she answered, her gaze flickering up to see him. He was delicate; he had always been the softest Hale son in the family, but their tragedy had worsened this somehow, made him all the more fragile, easily breakable. Hard to handle without causing damage. “You’ll take a little time off. Lots of people do it. You can apply somewhere when we get there.”

           “When will that be?”

           “It’ll be whenever it is,” she answered smartly. In the diner, which was meant to look like a vintage dive but was so small and gross that it just looked like a regular dive, American Pie played despite the fact that the jukebox in the corner looked like it hadn’t worked properly in years. The Formica table top was stained with suspicious, shadowy spots that Laura suspected would never fade again. Their booth faced a window, out of which they could see the truck, parked like an old giant outside the diner, opposite the gas station. The low murmur of conversation in the diner was occasionally punctuated by shouting back and forth between the kitchen and the waiters. The coffee was bad, and the smells were so strong that she knew Derek must be having a hard time. For their next meal she’d find somewhere calmer, where the stink of gas and sweat and grease wouldn’t overwhelm.

           If she asked, she knew Derek would say he was fine. At eighteen, he was at the tail end of his adolescence, which meant that he mostly had his powers and senses under control. But if she could make it any easier on him at all, she would.

           Afterwards, Laura let him drive for a while. Like everyone in their family, Derek was an excellent driver: it was one of the many ways their mother had taught control. From birth Talia had raised her children to adhere to a discipline that kept their powers in check, not because she was a strict mother – she was an exceptionally kind, gentle, forgiving mother, in fact – but the Hales did not have a reputation for incredible young wolves for nothing. Derek had been in near complete control of his transformations for two years now.

           (Laura had been fourteen, but then again, shifting came more naturally to Hale daughters.)

           When he got tired of driving, she took over. They were almost at the border by the time they stopped for the night. Laura would have preferred to sleep in the truck, where scents were familiar and she could be close to Derek, but he complained that he wanted a real bed and she wasn’t sure she was ready to say no to him just yet.

           So they stopped. It was one step above a motel, but it was clean and not too crowded, which would make it easier for Derek to sleep. When they entered the room, he fell into bed without saying much. Laura lay down. Her brother’s gentle snores filled the room.

           Inside of her, she felt dry and tired. Even so, she found that she could still cry, but could not sleep. Tears came only when Derek could not see; rest could not come while she had to look after her brother. Her Beta.

           In the dead of night the room still stank like guilt, even when Derek was lost in dreams sweeter than his reality.

           The grief which so haunted Derek had morphed by now into shadow for Laura. More than anything – more than loss, more than pain – it was her power she hated. Alpha hung over her like a dense fog, bearing down on her and showing her things she had never known, things she had never been taught.

           “Derek,” she whispered, into the darkness. “I miss Mom.”

           He did not stir.

—

           Thirty minute past midnight, a moaning howl shook them both awake, reverberating in their bones, sending a shiver through Derek’s body that left him with a gasp.

           He looked at her urgently, with big, wide eyes.

           “Stay here,” said Laura, getting to her feet.

           Derek reached out to her. “Laura-”

           The growl leapt from her throat with the force of an Alpha, and he could not protest. “Stay,” she told him. He stared at her, then closed his mouth, face pale, and sat down on the bed. Through the curtains, the sodium yellow of artificial lights seeped into the room. Laura placed one finger, claws out, before her lips, then cracked the door and slipped out, fanged teeth hidden by a closed mouth.

           Outside was cold. Rain rolled in from the ocean. All things smelled wet, which dampened Laura’s senses. Had she not been Alpha, she might have been nearly blind.

           But she was Alpha. More than that, she was a Hale Alpha. The Hales were one of the few lines which still warranted respect and, given that their pack was reduced to herself and her single Beta, she would use every advantage she had.

           In the motel’s dark parking lot, she faced out into the night. “If you’ve come to hurt my brother,” she said, quietly, “I’ll kill you.”

           From the darkness, a pack emerged. The Alpha was a man: not a family-pack, then. All bitten wolves. Baring his teeth, the Alpha smiled.

           “You’ve never killed anything in your life,” he sneered.

           “No,” she answered, “but we’ve all gotta start somewhere.” When he didn’t continue, she asked, “Who are you?”

           “Used to be nothing,” he told her, eyes narrowed. Behind him, seven Betas hovered, watching their leader as carefully as they watched her. “Used to be Omega. Your family made sure of that.”

           “Do I know you?” Laura asked, coldly.

           “You don’t,” he answered. “Your mother does. Or, she did, I suppose. Before they lit her up, that is.”

           Laura growled, “Shut up.”

           “Your mother killed my pack,” he continued. Another scent drifted to her in the cold air, but she kept her fiery eyes on the Alpha, keeping him focused. She did not think he picked up the scent. “Left me nothing. Let me live to teach me a lesson. No pack would let me join, not after the Hales marked me and left me for dead.” 

           “That’s absurd,” said Laura. “We wouldn’t do that.”

           The Alpha’s eyes flashed, almost in curiosity. “How do you think you stayed so powerful for so long?” he asked, his voice high and airy, floating through the nighttime. “The Hales were a possessive pack, and you never took kindly to strangers.”

           He laughed. It sounded frenzied in the darkness, like that of a hyena.

           “To think – all of us wanted to hurt you so bad, and in the end it was a hunter who took you down. I never thought I’d want to thank an Argent.”

           Laura scowled at him, baring her teeth. “We’re not gone,” she said, her voice stony. “I’m still here.”

           “Centuries of power," said the Alpha, "left to two pups. It’s almost a crime to kill you. But,” he said, with a grin, “looks like I’m lucky enough to find you first. I'll take my chance before I have to get in line.”

           He growled at her and took a menacing step forward, showing her his fangs when he smiled.

           “It’s nothing personal against you, sweetheart,” he said, extending his claws. “But in order to claim all that power you Hales kept for so long, I have to kill the Alpha." His eyes glinted red in the darkness. "I have to kill you. Wish your mother was alive instead, so I could tear her head off her-”

           The rumble of a motor, the heady smoke of an exhaust, and the truck screeched across the parking lot and rammed into the Alpha, throwing him against the building where he crumpled into a heap. His Betas howled with rage, but before they could attack the door to the truck opened and Derek shouted, “Get in!” and before the words were even completely out of his mouth Laura obliged, shouting “Go, go, go!” and he slammed on the gas, reversing out of the parking lot then shooting out and down the highway. Screaming, scratching noises came from the truck bed behind them and Laura uttered, “ _Shit_ , Derek, keep driving,” then opened the sunroof above them.

           “Laura,” began Derek, eyes wide, glancing up in terror. “Laura, what are you-”

           She climbed up; she could only fit out to her hips, but she roared at the Beta, another male, who hissed back at her and launched forward, sinking his claws into Laura’s shoulders. Without hesitation, Laura hooked her wrists around the Beta's neck, dragged him against the rushing wind, in close towards her, then swiped her claws across the Beta’s throat. Blood spurted, the wind carrying it behind them. His grip on Laura’s shoulders loosened and fell limp, and Laura threw the bleeding body off the car. It hit the road hard, and rolled, then moved no longer, an empty bag of bones.

           Laura wiggled her way back down out, collapsing on the seat beside her brother. Derek was crying, his hands shaking on the wheel; had he not been so used to control, to discipline, he would have been hysterical. Even so, she gently coaxed him into pulling over, where he finally let go of the wheel. She stayed with him until he started breathing normally again, and then she took a water bottle and got out of the car, washing the blood off her hands.

            It was still the middle of the night. The organic sounds of outside chirped and buzzed. The sound of water rushed somewhere in the distance. An owl hooted, and Laura’s stomach growled.

           She went back to the car, slamming the door shut behind her. They both said nothing for a moment, half in fear, half in relief. Then she opened the dash compartment and pulled out a small bag of Milano cookies. She offered them to Derek, and he shook his head, so she shrugged and took one for herself.

           “He said Mom killed his pack.”

           Laura glanced at her brother. He looked frightened, but also strangely hollow. “Derek…”

           “He said other wolves wanted to kill us,” he continued, looking at her. “Why would he say that?”

           “It doesn’t matter,” said Laura, shaking her head.

           “He was going to kill you-”

           “Derek,” she said, cutting him off. Her eyes pulsed red, and she watched him powerfully. “Our family’s strength runs in our blood, but we’re vulnerable. Of course other packs are going to try and take advantage of that. Sorry I didn’t warn you before.”

           He didn’t say anything, sitting there limply in the driver’s seat.

           Laura pulled a trigger underneath her window, and the locks clicked. “We’ll get on the road again at first light. You should get some more sleep.”

           “I don’t think I can,” he said.

           She didn’t say anything else to that. The trees before them shook in the breeze. The inside of the truck was cold and stale, but Laura leaned her head on her brother’s shoulder, close to him for warmth.

           In the distance, a wolf howled.

—

           When they reached the home, a big brown farmhouse in the middle of a rainy, coniferous forest, Derek ate and then slept. A border collie named Maple slept with him, its snout resting on his chest, as if listening for his heartbeat.

           Laura sat on the porch outside with an old woman who had married the great-uncle of Laura’s mother. They were not wolves, but Talia had reached out to all her family following her ascension to Alpha, human or otherwise. The woman smoked cigarettes, which stung the inside of Laura’s nose, but were good, she thought, for masking their scent. Voice old and raspy with smoke, the old woman asked, “Peter’s alive?”

           “Hardly," answered Laura, her voice low. "He’s completely unresponsive.”

           “You left him in Beacon Hills?”

           “I didn’t have a whole lot of options.”

           The old woman pursed her lips, and shook her head. “No,” she said, rocking in her chair gently, “I suppose you didn’t.”

           Inside the house, some children laughed and called out. Their mother, preparing dinner, shushed them. The drive had taken more out of Derek than Laura had thought: despite the syrupy evening light filtering in through the trees, he still slept with the border collie by his side.

           “You shouldn’t go back there,” said the woman.

           Laura stared out at the wilderness. “I know.”

           “Stay north, Laura. Things are safer here.”

           “We thought we were safe at home,” said Laura.

           The old woman shook her head, her breath slightly labored with age, the inside of her mouth smacking wetly. “Packs are different here,” she told Laura. “They’re family first. Community.”

           With an unreasonable spike of anger, Laura began, “That’s what we-”

           “I know,” said the woman, nodding her head. “That’s why you should stay. There aren’t very many families like yours left, but there are more here than down south. Packs don’t scrap for power here. They coexist.”

           “And hunters?”

           “Wherever there are wolves,” said the woman, her gnarled hands gripping the arms of her rocking chair, “there are hunters. That’s simple reality.”

           Their chairs creaked on the wooden porch, and from inside the house a fragrant, appealing scent wafted, warm and inviting. A breeze rustled through the trees. Laura heard the border collie make a sound in the back of its throat, and then heard Derek’s feet gently touch the floor, two stories above her.

           “I don’t know how to be an Alpha,” Laura confessed, the words slicing out her mouth and through her lips as she said them. “I was supposed to be trained. I thought I had years left.”

           “Well,” sighed the old woman. She blew out a stream of smoke, tapping ash from her cigarette. “If the ones we love waited for us to be ready before they passed, we would all live forever.”

           “They were murdered,” said Laura, softly.

           “And you were not,” she replied. “You were given a gift, Laura.”

           This time, she could not help it; Laura’s eyes flickered red, and a low growl emanated from her chest. “You call this a  _gift?_ ”

           “You’re alive,” said the old woman, her voice hoarse from years of smoke. “And so is your brother. If you can’t be Alpha for you – which is foolish enough, people would kill for that kind of power – then do it for your brother.”

           “I am,” said Laura. “I’m doing all of this for him. If it were up to me, I would’ve stayed in Beacon Hills and I would’ve found that woman and I would’ve burned  _her_  to the-”

           She broke off. She could hear Derek at the foot of the stairs. With the windows open, he was close enough to listen to her words. So she said nothing, merely looked out into the woods. “I hate hiding,” she said simply.

           “All you have to do is lay low for a little while,” said the old woman. “Things will settle down. Then you can do whatever it is you want, although I’m telling you, Laura, you need to stay north of the border.”

           Laura shook her head. By now the sun was setting, and the trees around them cast long shadows, dissipating the light. “Our mom owned that place in New York. That’s where we’re going.”

           “That was to keep in contact with the pack in Ontario,” said the old woman. “They would be perfect for you. Why don’t you join them? They’re family.”

           “They’re not family,” said Laura bluntly. Too quickly.

           She glanced around. The older woman met her gaze for only a moment, then lowered her eyes, stubbing her cigarette out on the arm of her rocking chair.

           Slowly, Laura looked away. “They’re bitten wolves,” muttered Laura. “By a male Omega. That’s not family, that’s desperation.”

           Inside the house, Laura heard Derek go to the kitchen, ask if he could help. Gently, graciously, he was directed to the children. “Entertain them for a while, could you?”

           Derek played with the kids all night long. It was the first time Laura had seen him with a real smile on his face in too long.

—

           Laura woke at dawn. She shook her brother awake, then went downstairs. When he joined her, they began to cook breakfast – the very least they could do to thank their hosts.

           Derek stretched his arms up and yawned. Maple, the border collie, padded gently into the room, then whined at the door. “Alright, alright,” murmured Derek, rubbing the tiredness from his eyes. To Laura he said, “I’ll be right back.”

           He opened the door and headed into the early sunshine, the bracingly icy air shocking his body, invigorating him. Once more he stretched, grinning into the cold dawn. After a few moments, he whistled at the dog, who came loping back to him, tongue lolling out of its mouth, grinning at him. He knelt down to scratch behind her ears, then turned around to open the door and head back inside.

           There was an utter, hollow silence.

           Just above a whisper, Derek uttered, “Laura.”

           Instantly the fear-stink met Laura’s nostrils and she recoiled against it, then steadied herself. She followed Derek out the door. It swung shut behind her. Something about the air smelled bitter and wrong, so sharp it stung her nose. She faced her brother, brow creased with worry. Pale as death, Derek raised one hand to point at the door.

           Laura turned around. Horror rose in her throat like bile.

           Nailed to the door was a lopsided cross made of wolfsbane rope.

—

           Laura left a note, because they were gone before anyone else woke up.  _  
_

—

           The house in New York had in fact belonged to their mother, and it belonged to Laura now. The place was bare and neat, like a nice hotel, but it smelled of family. Both Laura and Derek were drawn to what must have been their mother’s bedroom, where the scent was the strongest. Their father’s scent was there as well, but it smelled plain like the human he was to them, an ever-present pleasant but unremarkable smell. It was their mother’s familiar scent they craved, and for some time they both laid on that bed, injuring and hurting for want of their mother-Alpha.

           “This is it,” said Laura, after the first hour. They stared up at the ceiling together.

           It was an ending, but right then and there, she decided it must be a beginning too.

—

           There was a pack in upstate New York which was less of a pack and more of a loose affiliation of a number of Omegas and packless Alphas ( _packless Alphas_ , that’s what they call Alphas with a single Beta, and it made Laura angry: she is not packless, she’s a God damned  _Hale_ ), and Laura found herself drawn to them. It gave her some power at least, and a network of allies removed enough from Hale territory that they had suffered no injury on the part of her family. They liked Laura, because Laura made it her business to be very hard not to like, and what they represented to her was protection.

           Derek didn’t like seeing these people. Pack was family. His whole life, that’s all he had ever known. The only way he understood pack was _family_ , not a loose association of strangers.

           Besides, he thought – if they all burned, he did not want to burn with them. And he didn't want to be the one to light the flame.

           One night, so early on that they still sleep in their mother’s bed, clinging to what little remained of her scent, as the light of the crescent moon filtered in through a window Derek reached out and whispered, “Laura.”

           She didn’t open her eyes. “Yeah, Derek?”

           He was silent for a long time. She began to drift to sleep, thinking that whatever he had to say, it could wait until morning.

           Then it spilled from his mouth like foul-tasting vomit, something he could hold back no longer. “It’s my fault,” he said.

           So she did open her eyes, and she looked at him. “What is?” she asked gently, reaching out, brushing her fingers through his short black hair.

           “All of this,” he whispered. “Everything that happened. It’s my fault.”

           “No,” said Laura. “Oh, Derek. No, it’s not.”

           “It is.”

           “Listen to me.” She reached out, took hold of his shoulders. “You can’t do this to-”

           “ _Laura_ ,” he said. His eyes flashed a guilty blue, and his claws hooked around her wrists. “It’s  _my fault_.”

           She said nothing. She held him, waiting for him to say more, waiting for him to explain, waiting for him to confess. A minute passed, and then another. Derek let go of her wrists. Spent, he lay down on the bed, and closed his eyes.

           That sour stink of self-hatred surfaced once more, but it had become so ubiquitous by now that Laura hardly even noticed it. Still, she waited.

           Derek said nothing.

           In the pit of her stomach, Laura found herself dimly disappointed.

—

           When sometimes talked in his sleep.

           Laura stayed awake, eyes on the ceiling, listening to him whimper.  _Kate_ , she thought.  _So that’s her name_.

           One day, Laura decided, she would go back to Beacon Hills. If only to beat the everloving shit out of Kate Argent, and erase all evidence that she ever even existed.

—

           The next fall, Derek started as a psychology major at a state university. By his second semester, he changed his major to education. “I think being a teacher would be good,” he said thoughtfully, as they watched bad movies together, attempting to throw popcorn into each other’s open mouths. “I’m not really good at teaching, though.”

           “Hey, that’s why you’re studying it, though,” Laura pointed out. “To learn. Right?”

           His face broke out into that signature Hale grin, broad and happy. “Right.”

           Laura kept talking about rebuilding the pack, rebuilding their family, but at some point it seemed like she didn’t really mean it. She had left a girlfriend in Beacon Hills, and had a succession of flings after the first year or so, but none of them lasted very long. After each breakup she would eat ice cream and watch reruns of  _Friends_  with her brother. “I could help,” he offered once, amused and also injured to see her so upset. “You know, with the rebuilding the pack thing.”

           Mournfully, she shook her head. “Thank you, but focus on school for now, okay? One of these days I’ve just gotta lie down and take one for the team.”

           Spring of his junior year, Derek met a photography student named Joey. He was only a few years older than Derek, but he had a daughter with a girl who lives in the city. He went in to see her sometimes. Derek met her once: she was just a toddler, with deep brown eyes and long brown hair. Something struck at his heart, but for a moment he could not tell what it was. Then the little girl giggled at him and he thought: Cora. I remember when Cora was that little.

           Joey’s apartment was crawling with cats and it took a while for them to warm up to Derek, but eventually they did. There was a dog, too, and when the dog ran away Derek spent a week hunting it down, and brought it back.

          Joey was an animal person, always picking up strays who needed a home. Sometimes Derek thought that was why he picked him up, too.

—

           It only took seven months for Joey to leave, but it wasn't a terrible goodbye. Once he was gone, something felt different somehow. For the first time in a long time, Derek had trusted someone – outside of Laura – enough to give up a little part of himself. In return, things began to feel better. Things came easier to him now. He smiled more often, and he laughed.

           He graduated with a B.A. in education and a focus in child development. He was already setting up student teaching opportunities at the local elementary school when Laura took him out dancing with a few of her friends one night and then drew him very close and shouted over the music, “Let’s move to New York!”

           “Laura,” he shouted back, “we’re in New York.”

           “ _New York_ , New York! The city! Let’s do it! What’s stopping us!” She laughed loud, and she reached her arms around him and hugged him tightly, and hung on to him. “I’m so proud of you,” she said, and although her voice was a whisper he could hear it – he would hear the voice of his Alpha a thousand miles away, in deafening noise or roaring silence. He would know his Alpha's voice at the end of the world, in darkness, and in death. “I’m so happy,” she said.

           So they sold the house, leased a penthouse in New York, and lived the life. He started getting his teaching certification, but Laura kept dragging him out at nighttime, to dinner and to parties with her friends. Eventually he decided to postpone the teaching career for the time being. He dated a little bit, here and there. Most things didn't work out. Once, there was a girl who was trying to get sober, and that was good for Derek. In a way it was easier when people hurt. At least he knew how to take that pain away.

—

           At a party six months after moving to the city, Derek got wasted and danced with everyone, climbed up on his table, and at one point tried to take his clothes off. Everyone whined in protest when Laura took him immediately home, pale and stricken, staving off panic as Derek threw up into the toilet then passed out on his bed.

           In the morning when he woke up, she curled up next to him on his bed and rubbed his temples. “What’d you take, Derek?” she asked, gently.

           His eyes were closed, brow furrowed. “What?”

           “What did you take?” she repeated. “Alcohol doesn’t affect us. I’ve never seen anything that could get a werewolf as drunk as you were last night.”

           He didn’t say anything. “Somebody gave me a drink.”

           “Do you remember who?”

           “I… no.”

           “Derek.”

           “I don’t remember, Laura.”

           “A hunter or another wolf?”

           “How would I know?”

           She stared at him, lips pursed. Quietly, she asked, “Do we have to leave again?”

           This time he did open his eyes, even though the light hurt him. Defiantly he said, “No. We’re safe here.”

           When she said nothing more and her expression did not soften, Derek reached out and took her hand. He pulled it behind his head and placed it at the base of his neck.

           She watched him.

           Then she plunged her claws into his neck. Blood leaked down her hand, dripping onto the bedsheets beneath them.

           A few minutes later, she withdrew her claws. Derek took in a great, shuddering breath, his vision blurring back into focus. Laura sighed and climbed out of his bed, padding over to the bathroom to wash the blood off her hands. She came back with a bandage, and he sat up, allowing her to patch up the wound which would take some time to heal because she was his Alpha. Watching her expectantly, Derek finally asked: “So?”

           Laura didn’t answer at first, tending to his wound. Then she opened her mouth and said, “You know that weird Wicca girl who sells dreamcatchers out of her apartment?”

           “Oh, yeah,” said Derek. “River.”

           “If she says she has some kind of aura-brightening magical herb tea,” said Laura patiently, dabbing at the blood on the pillow behind Derek, “don’t fucking take it this time, OK?”

           Derek blinked at this, and then he started to laugh. It took a minute or two for Laura to join him, and the entire time she was saying, “Don’t  _laugh_ , Derek, it’s not funny, you had me really scared for a second there-”

           He reached out and wrapped his arms around his sister, and she could feel his head pulsing from the hangover, so she returned the embrace, veins pulsing black as she gently leached away his pain.

—

           For his twenty-fourth birthday, Laura bought Derek a sleek black Camaro. She stopped going to so many parties. He applied for that teaching certificate again.

           A few months later, Laura visited that almost-pack upstate, and she came back troubled.

—

           “No, it’s okay,” she said, picking a few things out of the bathroom cabinet, collecting them together in a small bag. “I’ll only be a few days.”

           Derek stood at the doorway to his sister’s bedroom. A half-filled backpack sat open and gaping on her bed. “You shouldn’t be out there alone,” he said. “I’d feel better about this if I could come with you.”

           “What, and miss out on the first day of school?” she asked, tucking her back full of toiletries back into her backpack. “You’re forty days away from being a real-life honest-to-God  _actual_  kindergarten teacher! You can’t give up now!”

           Although he was unable to bite back a smile, he did not relent. “We decided a long time ago to stick together, for protection. Especially back there.”

           “Not in Beacon Hills,” she said, shaking her head. “Beacon Hills belongs to us, Derek. It’s probably the safest place we could be.”

           Shortly, Derek said, “It wasn’t for Mom.”

           There was a pause between them.

           Shouldering her backpack, Laura turned to look at Derek. “Well,” she said. She held up a sheet of paper. “I already bought my plane ticket. I’ll keep you updated. If it gets dicey, I’ll come straight back. I promise.”

           Derek didn’t say anything, just watched her with worry in his eyes.

           Laura moved forward, leaned up, and kissed him on the cheek. “I wouldn’t go if I thought it was dangerous,” she told him softly. “There’s no way I’m leaving you on your own." She paused. Her eyes did not flicker red, but they might have well have. Quietly, she said, "I have to look into this, Derek. There's something here, I know it, and I couldn't live with myself if I didn't scratch at it."

           She smiled at him.

           They stood there for a moment in the doorway to her bedroom, then Derek stepped aside and let her pass. “You need a ride to the airport?” he asked, but she shook her head. As she passed the kitchen table, she picked up a sheet of paper she'd been showing Derek earlier. The design of a pendant was drawn on the paper: a creature with four legs and sharp teeth.

           “Taxi’s already here,” she called in return, heading towards the front door. She tucked the paper into her pocket. “Good luck at school! I’m so proud of you. Send me pictures of your first day.”

           He rolled his eyes, but reveled in the attention. “Laura…”

           “I won’t be gone more than a week or so,” she said, stopping at the door. “Try not to get into too much trouble without me, okay?” She grinned at him, that broad, wolfish Hale grin. “Love you,” she said, and then she opened the door and disappeared out of the penthouse, out of the building, out of New York, out of Derek’s life, forever.


End file.
